I realize this is going to be controversial, but frankly, I feel like the withering is more of a 'nuisance' more than an actual threat. Remove curses and IG ways of reducing your withering are simply to effective.
When I can get to stage 3, and take remove curse three times, and be safe for a few days, at the cost of some small xp hit and a handful of gold, it isn't scary, when I can recoup that in a single reset and be good for days.
Either significantly increase the xp penalty on remove curse, or reduce how effective it is in reducing the withering on your PC. Having the withering much more difficult to remove would make it far scarier and make it more dangerous to enter withered areas.
Edit: Perhaps making such cures 'less effective' the more you use them? Like, it could be a drug, the more you take it, the more you need to get the same result, and the cost only gets higher!
It's not small, and it gets very scary in longer run in some situations.
It is a solid, creeping threat that is part of the story all the way. And believe me, depending the situation and where you are at, you might find that those few reduces did not help much.
In my opinion it's good and dandy as it is.
I don't think it needs a change either. Consider that it's more likely that the Withering will grow stronger as time goes on, not always stay where it's at. In this case there needs to be a point to start at, or it's so strong that you can't make it stronger as H'bala advances.
Quote from: Paha Poika;253120It's not small, and it gets very scary in longer run in some situations.
It is a solid, creeping threat that is part of the story all the way. And believe me, depending the situation and where you are at, you might find that those few reduces did not help much.
In my opinion it's good and dandy as it is.
Also.. at higher levels... getting that 150 xp actually takes a good deal of time and effort.. atleast to me who is a fairly new player here.. Most quests are out of bounds, you get no xp from most random encounters.. and if you do, its maybe 1 - 10 xp.. depending on how hard the kill is. i just rechecked a bragging screenie about Aniriel killing a drider arcanist.. A foe most people would agree is very expensive to kill in terms of supplies. That kill earned me a fat 1 xp. At level 8, that is.
TL:DR version. Less xp at high levels. Leave remove curse as it is. 150Xp drain is more than enough
I'm strongly against this.
Speaking purely as a player of a caster character who believes it to be an important part of her duties that she helps the people of her community stay free of Withering, the XP cost is already high enough. Ouch. >.>
EDIT: I came up with a possible fix that should make most people here happy. For TNVW's characters only, they accumulate twice as many Withering points as others and only have half as many of them removed by the various cures. Everybody else keep the current rates.
Maybe it's because all my characters have been mistlocke-centered. But honestly, i've never felt the withering nor see (but one) PC who did.
The withering is a bitch, and if you play a character that is active outside mistlocke it isn't uncommon to need 1-2 remove curses per day to stay at stage 1 of the withering. That gets expensive fast in terms of xp or gold, especually when you reach the point where you are lucky to earn 20 xp a day or so. Items with remove curse already remove it at a lesser rate than other means as well.
The entire point of this discussion was indeed to to make it more difficult, as your character matures, the withering -should- be a much hated foe to your person and freedom.
I imagine you were right at the start of stage three withering if it only took you three to get all the wat back down. Even so that's a 450 exp loss.
Or an easily regained gold loss if you paid someone to perform the remove curse spell.
I guess you have not considered that in some point in time, H'Bala will begin accruing power and the curse shall be amplified in effect?
I am awaiting the time when this occurs and believe it is only a matter of time a lichess gains the power to amplify her magic, especially when nobody is actively assaulting her.
Point to Aethereal.
I can already visualise the exodus of EFU:M- tons of PCs turning withered very, very quickly. Can't wait..
When you wake up from the mist-dream the dreamer that greets you -does- warn about a certain upcoming event that I'd probably get in trouble for mentioning here!
Also against this. Not everyone has the time to quest as much as others, and since most of my unfortunately short time available to be in game is spent roleplaying, the gold / XP losses as they currently stand are quite substantial.
If the Withering was at the level TNVW seems to want, we'd run out of NPCs in a month or the DMs would be hand-waving why they're immune :P. Someone trading Withering removal for gold is trading XP for GP at a lousy rate of exchange and in big chunks. A potion will net you several GP per XP point lost, and even selling at the same rate as the NPC, you'll only get 2 GP per XP point lost. The trade of XP loss from deaths to profit is better on alchemy too if you're not hilariously unlucky.
In my opinion, a better idea would be to make it a little more obvious what the dangers are of being Withered, so players want to cure their PCs more regularly. Most PCs are in greater danger of being killed by another PC or a DM event than the Withering, so their priority is on resources and levels. Withering removal ain't cheap, and if you think it is, you're having a very good run. Things that affect every PC need to be balanced for the bottom end of the spectrum of PC resources and player questing skill, or they'll lead to 75% of PCs at L6 in Mistlocke, scared to do anything except Granary or Wolves and the other 25% as uber-zombies.
Something that might be worth considering is a well known newly discovered way to ward off the withering rather than curing it. If keeping the curse away long enough to raid or explore was something relatively simple to do but restoring it was a bit more costly, you might see more PCs afraid to make unprepared jaunts to withered lands. If it was a herb or something, it would also be available to wilds PCs. Much like in Sanctuary, where casters never went anywhere without Abjurer's Nightshade.
Frankly I think it's fine as it is though. The withered areas are worrying as much for the grade of enemy there as the Curse.
Withering is already a major pain in the ass. Frankly, at level 8, it's extremely hard to manage AND progress unless you are a gold hoarder - even then, it is VERY expensive, and don't expect to be able to spend that gold on anything else. I haven't seen stage 1 since the second week of EFU:M.
Reminds me, to an extent, of the rotting death. :)
Alright, seems the consensus is to keep Withering as it is.